Beer Culture Book Club: The Great Gatsby

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of an American classic, we invite you to join us for the next iteration of Beer Culture Book Club: The Great Gatsby.

Perhaps the most-widely taught (and read-for-pleasure) American novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is forever associated with the Roaring ‘20s, and near-universal flagrant flouting of Prohibition laws. Not many literary characters become adjectives, but “Gatsbyesque” aptly describes the outrageous excess of his West Egg mansion, and by extension, anyone who comes out of obscurity (“Mr. Nobody from Nowhere”) and makes a splash. Gatsby is admired for the pursuit of Daisy, his one true love, regardless of the cost.

But this common reading of the novel obscures its darkness, much as pleasure in a flashy party requires one to ignore the violence of organized crime that supplied the champagne and the gin. In this Beer Culture Book Club, Northwestern University Professor, Bill Savage, leads a discussion that refocuses Fitzgerald’s narrative as a crime novel. Gatsby is more than a mere bootlegger, and his milieu of 1920’s Manhattan and Long Island is rife with criminality, from stolen bonds and political corruption to M**der.

Come for the book, stay for the insight (and gin).

$10. To allow for good camaraderie and conversation, space for this event is extremely limited. Advance registration required. Food and beverage will be available for purchase.

Host or Publisher Chicago Brewseum